(sugar) scrub the pain away
by Younger Dr. Grey
Summary: or, how Chantal comes back into the picture with face masks, sugar scrubs, and some new talking points. Nova/Chantal. post-season one finale. inspired by @michaelamarionshaw's prompt: "What made you think I'd be okay with this?"


_\+ inspired by michaelamarionshaw's prompt: "What made you think I'd be okay with this?"_

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Nova barely gets her door open before Chantal's yapping at her.

"What made you think I'd be okay with this?" Chantal nearly drops her box of goodies as she hoists up her phone for Nova to see, the blue of the Twitter app momentarily blinding for them both. But Nova's eyes adjust, and she can see the thread of tweets all about her interrupted date and brush with Bruce Benson. She hides behind closed eyelids for a beat, but Chantal powers on through the silence. She says, "Nova, I get that we might not be seeing each other anymore, but if you think I'm letting something like this happen without checking in on you, then I don't think you ever knew me in the first place."

After all, this is the girl who took off her own necklace to personally provide Nova with a little extra strength on the first day they met. The girl who boasted, You gon' give it back to me, and rode around with Nova during the beginnings of a hurricane to make sure all her neighbors got somewhere safe. The girl who rolled her eyes at Nova's own sapphic hang ups and barely mentioned that Nova held on pretty tight for someone who claimed that she didn't go the U-haul route. Chantal doesn't mess around when she wants something. Even now, she stares through the shock on Nova's face and right to the part of her that's been waiting for days for someone to notice that something's wrong with her.

Don't get her wrong; Charley had asked when Nova was too quiet, and Micah had insisted on talking to her after he saw the same tweets that Chantal's waving now, but Nova's never been too good at accepting help, well-meaning or otherwise. But here's Chantal, standing on the other side of her doorway with a box filled with face masks and sugar scrubs — a whole self-care box meant to remind Nova of all the good that can't be stripped away no matter how many times she scrubs that white man's spit off her face. Here's help. Safe, loving help from someone who can actually see most of the sides of this thing.

Nova steps back, says, "I haven't cleaned."

"Since when have I cared?" Chantal asks. So Nova moves completely out of the way, and Chantal shuffles in. Sandals slip off, but Chantal holds onto the box. "You write about it?"

"I tried." About ten mock headlines and fourteen unfinished paragraphs later, Nova's pretty sure this is a story she's keeping to herself. Respectability politics are unfortunately still a key factor in deciding who all to listen to, and the news of this might turn some people off of listening to her. It's dumb, and she shouldn't care — wouldn't care if she knew it was worth it — but Calvin's messages have gone ignored for two days so she can figure all of this out. "Didn't work."

Chantal nods, taking stock. "Did you try talking about it?"

Talking makes Nova's throat close up. "Not a fan. I'd like to keep it that way, if that's okay with you." And Chantal must hear it for the non-request that it is.

"Okay." She sits down on the couch and sets the box down beside her. She moves the cushions to the floor between her spread out feet and taps them twice. "Come here."

The set up's familiar, like every Saturday as a girl getting her hair done for church, like long braiding sessions with BET in the background and Ralph Angel blabbering on about his plans for once the farm was all his. Nova slides on down onto the cushions with her back to the couch and lays her head back so it falls in Chantal's lap. Her eyes stay open at first, but as Chantal tugs her locs loose from their band, Nova sighs into the touch. Slips away as fingers gently loosen close strands and work their way up to her scalp.

There's something to be said about the way black women interact with hair. The way the pads of their fingers seem to read the curls and the texture, the knowledge that they've got that it's not about to break or bite or do anything but whatever it wants to do. Nova's locs hang a little lower today than they have in the past. It's a bit of an insult to injury on Nova's side, but Chantal pools them in her hands and massages some life and light back into them. She gets to the front of Nova's face, and her voice comes out barely above room sound. "I'll be right back. Okay?"

Nova hums rather than nodding. Then the couch shifts while Chantal walks off. Her steps don't go far, just into the kitchen, and the sound of the water against the sink tells Nova all she really needs to know. A cloth must be under the water. A soft one by the sound of it, real absorbent. Then the tap ticks back off, and Chantal lifts up Nova's head before settling back in.

"This is gonna be warm on your face for a second. That alright?"

Nova nods before the washcloth comes to rest along the top of her face. Light dabs along her edges before sweeping along her forehead and down her cheeks. The washcloth's got to be new because none of Nova's smell like pomegranate, or is that mint in there too? Chantal's careful as she loops around Nova's nose ring, and she drags along Nova's lips in a way that almost has Nova chasing after her. When Nova opens her eyes, Chantal's gaze doesn't waver from where she's wiping — tending to — Nova's skin.

Chantal tucks the washcloth into a bowl that she must've grabbed from the kitchen. She reaches for a jar, unscrews it while she talks. "When I was about fourteen, this little boy in my class decided that he was going to pick on me every day before P.E. started." She rubs what must be a mask onto her fingers then reaches down for Nova's chin. "Now, I wasn't about to have that, so I decided to pick on him right back. He called me ugly. I called him stupid. All kinds of stuff that we think are insults as kids but are only facts, you know, dumb stuff. Then one day, he corners me against this wall and says I only act that way because I like him, which —" She rolls her eyes, and her fingers work the mask along Nova's cheeks. It's a struggle for Nova to keep her eyes open, but she tries. She really does.

"So I tell him to get back before I knee him where it's really gonna hurt. He says that if I want to touch him, all I've got to do is ask. So I ask him, 'You really want me to touch you that bad? That's all I gotta do and you'll leave me alone?' And he nods, so I sigh and let him take another step closer to me. Then I swing back as hard as I can and jam him so hard between the legs that I got suspended for two weeks."

Nova laughs without meaning to. Chantal taps her on the nose and says, "No moving. You'll crack it. Just listen. So I'm out of school for two weeks. Mama's ready to kill me for letting this boy get me so worked up. I'm doing chores every day, helping my granny and anybody on the block who needs anything. My mama thought it would make me sorry for what I did, but all it did was show me that there's a lot more I could be doing than dealing with some stupid boys who don't know how to handle their emotions."

Nova can't resist. "The whole gay thing probably helped out with that."

Chantal bops Nova's nose again, and Nova scrunches away from it, cracking the lower half of the mask. "Stop moving! That's all you got from that?"

"Mostly, yeah."

Chantal smoothes out the face mask. "Just by being ourselves, we wind up in these battles with people who don't understand what we're doing here. People who analyze everything we do and somehow still come to the wrong conclusions about us. But all that doesn't mean anything, not really. Everything they do just brings us closer to what we're meant to do. So let them rage, and we'll fight back even harder until eventually they learn to pick their battles somewhere else."

At that Nova cracks up. She turns with it, and Chantal has to jump her thighs apart to stop from getting smeared with charcoal. Nova says, "That's what you're teaching people these days?"

"Yes, Nova," and Chantal practically sings her name, her eyes shine though so she hears the relief and amusement in Nova's voice, "those are my talking points. I give up on you. Here." She picks the washcloth up out of the bowl and drops it in Nova's hands, which only makes Nova laugh again. "This mask is wasted on you."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can you at least clean me off?"

Chantal sighs, but she tugs the washcloth up anyway. Wipes away all her hard work while Nova cheeses up at her. "You're lucky you're cute."

Nova holds Chantal's eye for a beat. "I am pretty lucky, yeah."

Once the mask is all gone, Chantal drops off the cloth and kisses the crown of Nova's head. "Any better?"

"Am I glowing?" Nova asks. If she is, it's probably got nothing to do with the skin care.

"You could use a little lotion. This one's on you." Chantal pushes the box over, and Nova grabs the lotion inside. She slathers some on her hands and works it onto her skin. Chantal says, "I'm not sure how long I can stay." It's half apology, half question, and Nova settles her head back against Chantal's thigh.

"You can stay as long as you'd like."

Chantal nods, rubs in a spot of lotion on Nova's jaw. "Alright then. A little longer."

Sometimes, that's all anyone needs. A little bit longer with the people who care.

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End file.
